Apple Watch lacks a built-in Camera

September 10, 2014

Apple Watch lacks a built-in camera. I’m sure that many people were disappointed to here about it. There rare many reasons why I personally would have wanted to have a built-in on the Apple Watch. For example, it can be fast and easy to just point your watch and tap to take an image of an event that happened at that very moment, instead of reaching your pocket and take the shot. It’s more discreet, so you don’t get people looking at you while taking the shot, etc.

In my opinion, Apple didn’t include a built-in camera on the Apple Watch for one or more of the following reasons:

The miniaturization of the camera components will increase the Apple Watch cost quite considerably

Even if it wouldn’t bump the cost by too much, the image quality would be low due to a much smaller image sensor (aka smaller pixels, lower resolution)

A camera would make the watch larger in side (whether horizontally or vertically, or both), and that might make the watch much less attractive (in my opinion it’s already quite thick, especially for women who might prefer a slimmer Apple Watch)

Apple is trying the Apple Watch out to see if it sells well, and don’t want to invest lots of money and effort on an unproven product which is already on the market and didn’t claim high market share (mmm.. probably not, but who knows)

Most people will prefer shooting with their phone’s camera because it has a better and larger viewfinder (the screen), easier to focus, easier to interact with t

We might see an Apple Watch 2 with a built-in camera in the future. There are already other smartwatches that have a built-in camera, like the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2. The Gear 2 doens’t have a thick profile and it cost ~$270, allowing FHD stills and 720p vido recording — so if Samsung can do it for a cheap price, can’t Apple do the same?

Whatever the reason, this is what we have. I personally don’t think it’s a deal breaker, but certainly a feature that I would like to see in future releases.

What’s your opinion? — Would you buy the Apple Watch, knowing it lacks a built-in camera?